At least 13 people were killed and 57 wounded in an IDF strike near Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, just as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv for the 11th time to uselessly meet with indicted war criminal Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The death toll could be higher.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling Likud party have turned Lebanon into a free-fire zone in their attempts at liquidating members of Lebanese Hezbollah. This blood-thirsty cabal has no regard for collateral damage whatsoever. The latest strike hit the Al Janah district of the capital where the main government-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital is located, Lebanon‘s Ministry of Public Health said in an update on X citing its Public Health Emergency Operations Center.
At least 13 people were killed and 57 wounded in this IDF strike near Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut. (Photo: Wael Hamzeh EPA/EFE)
Rescue teams were continuing to comb through the rubble Tuesday morning in the hope of finding survivors from at least three destroyed medium-rise buildings as well as other buildings badly damaged in the strike in the neighborhood, one of Bierut’s poorest.
However, a second hospital was evacuated after the IDF alleged it housed a secret underground bunker used by Hezbollah to store cash, sparking panic that an airstrike could be imminent.
The Israeli army also hit the coastal city of Tyre with ten rounds of strikes after calling on residents of the al-Hawsh neighborhood to evacuate.
Hezbollah counter-attacked against Israeli territory firing around 80 “projectiles” across the border, causing no injuries or damage, only tripping loud air-raid sirens.
Lebanese Hezbollah confirmed that it was responsible for a failed attempt over the weekend to attack Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu‘s private residence in Caesarea with three explosive drones.
The announcement at a press briefing in Beirut came as Netanyahu sat down for talks with Blinken with Netanyahu’s office posting a photo on social media of the pair in the Israeli leader’s office in Jerusalem.
Blinken will earnestly try to kickstart negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza to release the remaining hostages and pressure Israel to improve humanitarian aid access in Gaza after threatening to halt weapons shipments over the issue.
The State Department said in a statement that during his four-day trip, which will also take in other capitals in the region, Blinken would also be discussing the need to “reach a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that fully implements UN Security Council Resolution 1701” and allowed civilians on both sides of the Blue Line to return to their homes.
“The Secretary will reaffirm the US commitment to work with partners across the region to de-escalate tensions and provide lasting stability,” the department said.
Since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, 1.2 million people have been displaced, 2,412 people killed (including 127 children), and 11,267 people wounded. The next generation of anti-Israelis and antisemites have been well-incubated by the Likudniks.
Remarkably, Israel apologized for killing three Lebanese Army soldiers last weekend. The Lebanese Army is not a party to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The multi-faith manned Lebanese Army does not support Israel’s invasion of its country and refers to them as the “enemy.” Lebanon’s army receives US military and financial assistance (for example, in 2021 the US provided $236 million. This is a mere drop in the bucket relative to what Israel has received since 1950. See State Dept info on US aid to Lebanon below).
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, one of the most competent members of the Biden Administration and a man with a reputation for intellect and decency, must be holding his nose every time he meets with the odious Prime Minister of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the State of Israel has been cited for war crimes at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), both august bodies located near each other at the Hague.
This man is patiently waiting for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. He is Karim Khan KC, the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague. Americans should be familiar with the ICC. Special Counsel Jack Smith completed his assignment at the ICC prosecuting war criminals before returning to the US to prosecute Donald Trump for his alleged crimes against the American people. (Photo: Office of the Prosecutor via BBC).
Sources:
UN world court calls for prevention of genocidal acts in Gaza | UN News
Israel Apologizes After Strike Kills 3 Lebanese Soldiers – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
U.S. Security Cooperation With Lebanon – United States Department of State
Ukraine Military Intelligence: Russian Pilot Involved in Deadly Kremenchuk Strike ‘Eliminated’
The late Russian Air Force Colonel Dmitry Golenkov was an unindicted war criminal.
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) announced on 21 Oct the “elimination” of Russian military pilot Dmitry Golenkov, a chief of staff in Russia’s 52nd heavy bomber aviation regiment who was involved in a deadly missile attack on a shopping center in Ukraine’s Kremenchuk in June 2022. The attack, carried out using Tu-22M3 bombers, resulted in 22 deaths and dozens of injuries among the nearly 1,000 civilians present at the Amstor shopping center at the time.
Rescuers working sift through rubble at the Amstor shopping center in Kremenchuk after it was hit by a Russian missile strike on 27 Jun 2022. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine / AFP
HUR also linked Golenkov to the January 2023 missile attack on a residential building in the city of Dnipro, which killed 46 people, including six children. The intelligence agency reported that Golenkov’s body was found with head injuries, possibly inflicted with a hammer, emphasizing “fair retribution for every war crime.” Russia had claimed the June 2022 attack targeted military storage facilities near Kremenchuk, not the civilian center.
Ukraine’s espionage capabilities are constantly improving. Rather than attempt an abduction and bring this killer to face justice in a war crimes trial in Kiev, Colonel Golenkov was rendered ineffective on Russian soil and his unknown assailants have disappeared.
Source:
Kyiv Says Russian Pilot Involved In Deadly Kremenchuk Strike ‘Eliminated’ (rferl.org)
Food Safety Alert: McDonald’s Quarter Pounder Hamburgers
McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers are making people sick, with most illnesses in Colorado and Nebraska. At least 49 illnesses have been reported across ten states, including one death of an older person. Ten people have been hospitalized, including a child who had hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious complication that can develop from an E. coli infection.
CDC, FDA, USDA FSIS, and public health officials in multiple states are investigating an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections. Most people in this outbreak are reporting eating the Quarter Pounder hamburger at McDonald’s before becoming sick. It is not yet known which specific food ingredient is contaminated.
McDonald’s is collaborating with investigation partners to determine what food ingredient in Quarter Pounders is making people sick. McDonald’s stopped using fresh slivered onions and quarter pound beef patties in several states while the investigation is ongoing to identify the ingredient causing illness.
McDonald’s recently opened a lawsuit against US beef suppliers for price-fixing and GOP hopeful Donald Trump completed a photo-op at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania which was ridiculed at many levels. As a Republican strategist once said, “everything Trump touches, dies.”
Sources:
E. coli Outbreak Linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders | E. coli infection | CDC
McDonald’s sues major beef producers in US price-fixing lawsuit | Reuters
South Korea May Send Weapons to Ukraine to Counter North Korea’s Troop Deployments
South Korea is a top-ten weapons producer in the world. Pictured above is the K239 Chunmoo, a multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). (Photo: Hanwha Defense / Armaments Agency)
South Korea could send weapons to Ukraine as part of “phased measures” it vowed to take against North Korea and Russia over their deepening military cooperation, a senior presidential official said.
The comment came after South Korea’s deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo told a news conference that the South Korean government demanded that Pyongyang immediately withdraw troops it sent to Russia to help in the war with Ukraine.
“If the illegal military cooperation between North Korea and Russia continues, [we] will not stand by but respond firmly in collaboration with the international community,” Kim said, warning of “phased measures” in response to the level of their military ties.
A senior presidential official told reporters that the measures could include sending weapons for defense and attack, but the official did not elaborate.
South Korea’s spy agency said last week that the North had decided to send about 12,000 troops to help Russia with its war in Ukraine, and had already dispatched 1,500 soldiers to Vladivostok for training.
18 of them have already deserted their posts in Russia. (Photo: ukranews.com)
North Korea has denied the report, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed speculation of North Korean troops going to Ukraine as “fake news.”
South Korea has a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to countries fighting wars and has maintained that stance with Ukraine, sending only humanitarian aid.
The official’s remarks came in response to the Ukrainian envoy’s comment that the North was planning to soon send “large-scale” regular troops to help Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.
Russia said it would continue to strengthen ties with North Korea, while declining to confirm South Korea’s report. The US said it could not confirm the report, while North Korea’s state-run media outlets had remained silent at time of publication.
North Korea and Russia have moved closer over the past year or more amid widespread suspicion that North Korea has supplied conventional weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly submitted a bill to the lower house of parliament on Monday to ratify a treaty to raise its relationship with North Korea to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The change was agreed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on 19 Jun in Pyongyang after summit talks during the Russian president’s state visit.
The new partnership includes a mutual defense assistance clause that would apply in the case of “aggression” against one of the signatories.
Both raging wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are escalating and Vladimir Putin miscalculated the South Korean response. His attempt at disguising the North Koreans as Siberian Buryats was seen through and the Ukrainians could benefit greatly from the effective mass casualty-causing South Korean weapons. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is paralleling the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, with allies sending arms and personnel in a massive testing ground and battlefield meat-grinder. The North Korean “volunteers” will become cannon-fodder in “meat attacks” when they encounter tired, but combat-hardened and experienced Ukrainian soldiers like the Amazon pictured below and the dense intelligence web targeting them.
Anastasia Blyshchyk said she was initially rebuffed when she volunteered to fight. “I heard, ‘You’re a woman, you need to make babies, go home.’” Photo: Emile Ducke for The New York Times
While the Biden Administration cannot persuade Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un, or the Iranian leadership to de-escalate, Pres. Biden can talk to his so-called “ally” to a achieve a ceasefire in the Middle East. And like Tehran, Moscow, and Pyongyang, the Likud regime is not cooperating with him either. And hands down the US is Israel’s greatest benefactor in the world. Prolonged hostilities defer Netanyahu’s bribery and corruption trial and enfeebles the Biden Administration. Democratic Party leaders are right to suspect that Netanyahu wants to continue hostilities in the Middle East, as well as a right-wing GOP victory this November. Right-wingers like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are birds of the same feather, like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un.
Sources:
South Korea summons Russian envoy to urge it to stop North Korean Ukraine involvement
North Korea sending troops to aid Russia in Ukraine war: South’s spy agency
Russia forming North Korean battalion amid soldier shortage: reportOpinion | Ukrainian Women Fight for Their Own Liberation – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
American Warzone: Five Dead in Shooting at Home in Washington State; Teenager Arrested
Americans suffer wartime casualties every year because of the proliferation of firearms in the US. According to the CDC, in 2022 there were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in the US.
Law enforcement officials found five people killed in a shooting inside a home southeast of Seattle on Monday morning and took a teenager into custody.
Several people called 911 around 5AM to report a shooting in Fall City, WA.
(Google Maps)
Arriving deputies immediately took one teen into custody while another teenager who had been hurt was taken to a Seattle hospital. Both teens live at the house.
Deputies entering the home found the bodies of five people. Two were adults and three were described as young teenagers. No names have been released yet.
“Once bodies were discovered, clearly we understand that this is a hugely significant crime scene,” the King County Sheriff’s office said.
The shooting appears to involve members of a family, but authorities didn’t yet know how they were related. There was no ongoing threat to the community.
“I have no reason to think that there will be any additional arrests,” said the sheriff’s department.
The teen in custody was booked into King County’s juvenile detention facility and will be arraigned on Tuesday or Wednesday.
A neighbor told KING-TV that a couple and their five children lived in the home.
“I’m just in total shock, I keep bursting into tears,” Lynne Trowern, told the news outlet.
King County Councilmember Sarah Perry said the shooting involved a family of seven people.
Sheriff Patricia Cole-Tindall told KING-TV that she was “very sad, very disturbed” to learn about the shooting.
Guns are in the households of an estimated 42.1% of Washington state residents. In 2021, 165,534 firearms licenses were recorded in the state. In an average year, 887 people die and 1,245 are wounded by guns in Washington State. Gun violence costs Washington $1,559 per resident each year. Gun deaths and injuries cost Washington $11.9 billion each year, of which $171.7 million is paid by taxpayers.
Sources:
Teen in custody after 5 found dead in shooting at home in Washington state (voanews.com)
Gun-Violence-in-Washington-2024-05.pdf (everystat.org)
11. Washington – Gun map: Ownership by state – statistics and rates (cbsnews.com)
https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/data-research/facts-stats/index.html
Leptospirosis Cases Rising in Philippines
Est. population 118,277,063; GDP per capita: $9,700 (2023 est.) Map and data: CIA
The Philippines continues to log more leptospirosis cases and deaths. From January to October, the Philippines Dept of Health recorded 5,835 cases, 16 per cent more than in the same period last year. Meanwhile, 509 deaths have been reported across the country.
“As we expect more rain to come, we must always be mindful of what to do especially if there is flooding. Avoid floodwaters as much as possible,” Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said. Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection commonly spread through water contaminated with animal urine.
Humans become infected through direct contact with the urine of infected animals or with a urine-contaminated environment. Cases of leptospirosis can increase after floods when people may have to wade through contaminated water.
Without treatment, leptospirosis in people can lead to kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, trouble breathing, and even death.
About one million cases in people occur around the world each year, with nearly 60,000 deaths. Leptospirosis has been reported throughout the US. Leptospirosis is treated with antibiotics, such as doxycycline or penicillin.
Residents wade across a flooded street with their belongings in Sangli in Western Maharashtra, India. They are vulnerable to a host of water-borne diseases. (Undated photo: PTI)
Leptospirosis and other water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery will continue afflicting people in flood-prone areas. The ubiquitous mosquito will also thrive in these wetlands, becoming vectors for Zika, Chikungunya, Dengue, and Malaria. Mankind needs pesticides to combat these pests, but at the same time we see that some pesticide residues can contaminate water supplies, as we have seen in Martinique and France.
About Leptospirosis | Leptospirosis | CDC
View from Europe: Donald Trump’s Unpredictable Actions Fuel Concern for his Mental and Cognitive Health
Copyright John Bazemore/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.
With a few weeks to go before the presidential election, European writer Andrew Naughtie summarized concerns about Donald Trump mental and cognitive health.
“In recent weeks, Trump has been behaving particularly oddly, rambling and slurring his words in increasingly long-winded speeches and at one point remaining on the stage after an event to spend half an hour silently dancing to a mournful playlist.
One particularly strange appearance lately saw him deliver a five-minute-plus monologue about the late golfer Arnold Palmer, in the course of which he alluded to other linksmen’s astonishment at the size of Palmer’s genitalia.”
Mr Naughtie further writes:
“Trump’s campaign has also declined to release his medical records and pulled him out of numerous public events and interviews, fueling speculation that he is “exhausted” and that they are trying to limit opportunities for him to give a particularly poor performance.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s campaign is leaning hard into the idea that Trump is unfit to be president not just because of his previous conduct but because he is not psychologically up to the task.”
“It is clear: Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged,” Vice-President Kamala Harris said at a recent campaign stop. “And he is seeking unchecked power.”
In the 2016 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Senator Hilary Clinton said:
“I will leave it for psychiatrists to explain [Trump’s] affection for tyrants.”
Mr Naughtie writes there was a great debate in the American psychiatric and psychological establishment over whether or not it was ethical for clinicians to diagnose Donald Trump with a personality disorder from afar without examining him in person.
He wrote that this argument dates back to the 1964 election when more than 1,000 psychiatrists told a survey that, in their professional opinion, then-Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was unfit for office. This is called a “duty to warn.”
Mr. Naughtie concludes:
“Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, frequently deride Harris as intellectually subnormal, with Trump going so far as to deride her as “crazy” and “nuts”. While this may play well with their voters, there is so far no sign of any serious discussion about the state of Harris’s mental health.
The vice president has also released her medical records, which show her to be in excellent physical health besides minor myopia and seasonal allergies — and despite all the speculation about his physical and mental exhaustion, there is so far no indication that Trump will be releasing his.”
Many Americans are dumb-founded that this election could be even this close between a convicted felon who was twice impeached as President and a former California Attorney-General, US Senator, and current VPOTUS. The only explanation is that whites, the bulk of the Republican Party, have no choice but to support Donald Trump, an avatar of white supremacy or “whiteness,” regardless of the catastrophic social and economic policies outlined in Project 2025 or his tremendous panoptic character flaws. Both Trump and Vance perpetrate lies about Haitian refugees eating pets or spread lies about Kamala Harris or Ken Walz as a distraction. Discussing the Christian Talibanization of America embodied in Project 2025 may turn off enough white female Republican voters in battleground states who have already lost reproductive rights thanks to the reactionary US Supreme Court.
Source:
Donald Trump’s unpredictable actions fuel concern for his mental and cognitive health | Euronews
Georgia Man Arrested for Assaulting Law Enforcement with Weapon and Other Charges During 6 Jan 2021 Assault on US Capitol
Cylester Maxwell at the Stop the Steal rally on 6 Jan 2021. (Photo: FBI)
Cylester Maxwell (42) of Alpharetta, GA was arrested by the FBI and charged in a criminal complaint filed in the District of Columbia with felony offenses of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon and civil disorder during the 6 Jan 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
Maxwell was identified in open-source video footage on 6 Jan 2021, in Washington, DC marching with a crowd of rioters away from the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse and toward the Capitol building. By approximately 1:35 PM Maxwell made it onto restricted Capitol grounds positioned near the front of the crowd confronting a police line on the West Plaza near the Media Tower erected in front of the Inaugural Stage.
Maxwell, together with other members of the mob, shoved an eight feet tall and ten feet wide sign into the line of police like a battering ram. Several seconds later, after the sign was pushed into the officers, Maxwell let go of it and grabbed and pulled a barricade away from the police line.
(Photo: FBI)
Maxwell pulled another bike rack barricade away from the police and successfully broke through the West Plaza police line. He then remained on or near the West Plaza for some time as rioters flooded the Capitol’s Lower and Upper West Terraces.
In the 45 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,532 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 571 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
This brontosaurus heeded the call of idiotic call of Donald Trump, behaved violently at his behest, and now has thrown his life away listening to the ex-President, whose mental fitness is being questioned.
A complaint is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Sources:
New Zealand Airport Sets Time Limit on Goodbyes and Hugs
The cuddle cap was imposed in Sep 2024 to “keep things moving smoothly” in the redesigned passenger drop-off area outside the airport, CEO Dan De Bono told the AP. It was the airport’s way of reminding people that the zone was for “quick farewells” only. (Photo: AP)
Emotional farewells are a common sight at airports, but travelers leaving the New Zealand city of Dunedin will have to be quick. A new three-minute time limit on goodbye hugs in the airport’s drop-off area is intended to prevent lingering cuddles from causing traffic jams.
“Max hug time three minutes,” warn signs outside the terminal, adding that those seeking “fonder farewells” should head to the airport’s parking lot instead.
(Map: ontheworldmap.com)
The signs had polarized social media users, De Bono said.
AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on a ‘hug cap’ imposed at a New Zealand airport.
“We were accused of breaching basic human rights and how dare we limit how long someone can have a hug for,” he said, adding that others had welcomed the change.
The signs were meant as an alternative to those at other airports warning of wheel clamping or fines for drivers parked in drop-off areas. Some in Britain have imposed fees for all drop-offs — however brief.
Dunedin’s airport — a modest terminal serving a city of 135,000 people on New Zealand’s South Island — preferred a “quirky” approach, De Bono said.
Three minutes was “plenty of time to pull up, say farewell to your loved ones and move on,” he said. “The time limit is really a nicer way of saying, you know, get on with it.”
A 20-second hug is long enough to release the wellbeing-boosting hormones oxytocin and serotonin, De Bono said. Anything longer was “really awkward.”
But passengers need not worry unduly about enforcement. “We do not have hug police,” De Bono said.
Visitors might, however, be asked to move their lingering embraces to the parking lot, where they can cuddle free of charge for up to 15 minutes.
At age 57, Lynda Perry has become the oldest ‘new’ constable in the history of the Royal New Zealand Police College. Luckily, she won’t be enforcing any hug violations at the airport.
Source:
New Zealand airport wants you to hug goodbye faster | AP News
Coriolanus 